- Publisher: 2K Games
- Release Date: Apr 18, 2005
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Stronghold 2 is addictive in its complexity and rich in its many-layered economic management system, not to mention challenging (yes, partly thanks to the lack of help in learning how to play the damn thing).
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Manages to provide an engaging combination of simulated medieval warfare and peasant life without getting too lost in the mundane details that can easily wreak havoc on such a title.
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Even with the painfully long load screens and the lags in the game play I still enjoy this game.
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A satisfying blend of Sim and RTS - strategy fans, medieval groups and jousting wannabes alike should make sure to check this out as soon as possible.
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It's a game with style, in the true sense of its word. That is, it has decided what it wants to be and then just does that, without worrying what the world may think of it.
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AceGamezIt's the kind of game you could've bought three years ago for the same price, same graphics and same gameplay.
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Not as ground-breaking as the original, but still a rewarding experience.
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Tries to do just a bit too much and ends up not really excelling at anything.
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The graphics are supreme and almost unmatched in today’s strategies, but with "Age of Empire III" just around the corner, we can’t see Stronghold 2 sustaining life for a long time in anybodies gaming world.
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Game InformerNeither the RTS-style combat nor the castle sim elements of the game live up to today's standards. [June 2005, p.135]
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It wasn’t a lot of fun to play, and it didn’t run very well on my computer. All it did was remind me how much fun Stronghold was, and that I should go back and play it sometime.
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The story is a mess, visuals are lifeless, and gameplay is flawed on many levels.
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Stronghold 2 isn’t poorly developed; it’s just a combination of bugs and a bad front end that keep Stronghold 2 from being a must buy title.
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Just doesn’t feel like a finished game.
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A reasonably original take on the 3D RTS genre and it does offer some good gameplay, but some of the more technical aspects let it down - such as the visuals, the engine's performance even on lower settings and the somewhat disappointing battles.
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With the combination of some of the absent design aspects, the forcing of micromanagement, and the sub par graphics, I can only marginally recommend this game.
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A poor story, weak artificial intelligence, and plenty of bugs mar what otherwise could have been a simple yet fun castle-building game.
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This castle’s built on sand.
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The predictability and low AI of your opponents do their best to wreck the game completely. So although some missions tend to be fun, the effect is completely ruined by the monotonous process of rebuilding your kingdom or performing a set military attack.
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But it's impossible to ignore the unfinished feel of the "final" product and even though it received a patch almost immediately after release, a lot more support is needed to make this a game worth investing a lot of time in. It's simply not finished yet.
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Cheat Code CentralPerhaps more of these flaws will be addressed and fixed in the upcoming patches but I would wait another month or so to see what the developers have come up with before I waste my time with such a sloppy game. [5/5/05]
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If you're like most gamers, however, it may be too much like a post-graduate MBA sim of life running a distribution center of some sort.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 96 out of 228
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Mixed: 74 out of 228
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Negative: 58 out of 228
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DisappointedSep 2, 2005
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Dec 15, 2011
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Jul 23, 2011